Nerds guide to the Net: Help with Websites
 

With so many people asking "How can I do this", "Where can I get this", etc., I thought it might be helpful for some of the "newbie" webmasters if some of the more experienced webmonkeys shared some of their knowledge. Things you've stumbled across, different technologies, tutorial pages, etc.

For instance,
Good Basic Webhosts

If you're a team that needs an external webhost, I'd suggest www.staghosting.com. It's a great free host that will give you ftp, mySQL, PHP, CGI, SSH, email, webstats, and some pretty darn good bandwidth and webspace without ads.

Good Pay Webhosts
I run two servers, so I'm not really in a need for any of this stuff here. I've got friends who have useed StagHosting and say it's reliable. However, if you want to go the pay route--or you think you're going to become the next CD, but don't have Brandon's uber-server knowledge--then check out www.ehostsource.com. All the features you could imagine for $5.95 a month.

Domain Names

www.web.com has the best rates I've seen so far, at 6.95 a year for a domain name. They don't provide DNS however, which leads me to

Free Domain Name Service

http://freedns.afraid.org will give you all of the DNS you need. Yay for the open source community.

Messageboards

Everyone has their preference. Mine is the Invision Power Board. You can download a "free trial", which is no different than phpBB or any other board. They just try to manuever you into paying for it. You can download the "free trial"--one again, don't be discouraged by the name, I just downloaded it and it's the same as always--here.

Other stuff
The First Uber Geeks have some great programs on their site.

Nothing wrong with a good old fashioned HTML tutorial page.

Invision File Manager: A great little web based file management app that lets you create an account from where you can upload, download and store files, as well as edit the mySQL database.

Also, I'm too lazy to find a link, but phpMyAdmin is an invaluable tool when it comes to editing your mysql databses. Search for phpmyadmin on www.sourceforge.net

And, finally, tips and tricks if you're dealing with a fascist webhost like mine.

Web Proxy Page.
Secure Web FTP.
Putty Download: Hint, choose to "open" rather than "save from disk". You're the only one who knows how to SSH out from your network. I suggest dialing into your central server as a proxy and then going through the HTTP socket and port 8080. Works for me.

So yeah...hopefully this will help some of the rookies in the web design world.

--Petey

Re: Nerds guide to the Net: Help with Websites
 

Hmm. I'll add a few. Here are some places that I visit at least once a week:

http://www.w3.org/
http://www.w3schools.com/ Great HTML, CSS, & XML tutorials/references.
http://www.php.net/
http://www.mysql.com/

Re: Nerds guide to the Net: Help with Websites
 

There's a free DNS service over at http://www.no-ip.org, where you can download a free program, and it will update the DNS' IP direction to your new IP (Example: Your no-ip.org address is cd.no-ip.org w/ an IP of 55.55.5.5. Your IP changes to 55.55.5.4, the program will then change cd.no-ip.org's IP to 55.55.5.4).

The above is really good if you want to run your site off of your own computer (it'd probably be cheaper).

[I have to give thanks to Brandon though for telling me about this over the summer, so...thanks :)]

Re: Nerds guide to the Net: Help with Websites
 

Yes, but that costs money if you want a domain which (in some people's opinion) is more professional. If you want other free DNS, try Zoneedit.com, where you can download an update utility if you have dynamic dns.

Re: Nerds guide to the Net: Help with Websites
 

godaddy.com is very reliable registerar, have been through about 4 domains with them. Props to this thread! :)

~ Akshay

Re: Nerds guide to the Net: Help with Websites
 

Amen, 3 domains here.

Re: Nerds guide to the Net: Help with Websites
 

Re: Nerds guide to the Net: Help with Websites
 

Might i first Highlight all of these.

And add some of my own:

some decent free hosting w/minimal ads(one very small at the top):
http://www.netfirms.com

an awesome windows PHP/HTML editor:
http://devphp.sourceforge.net/

great windows ftp client:
http://www.smartftp.com/

Re: Nerds guide to the Net: Help with Websites
 

Oops! We're preparing version2 of our site right now! But if anyone wants to look at our php files (for tutorial or integration purposes) then please PM me and I'll make a temp page and post it here (and of course send the link back in a reply).

I didn't realize anyone used those! :ahh: :D